In 2003 Bill Gates tried to download Microsoft Movie Maker from Microsoft.com. His confusing, frustrating, futile experience prompted him to write a terrifically scorching email to the managers in charge of the project. It starts off pretty mild, with just a hint of the brutally funny sarcasm to come. (“I typed in movie maker. Nothing. So I gave up and sent mail to Amir saying – where is this Moviemaker download? Does it exist? So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated.”) It gets better from there.
The best way to experience Bill’s rant is by listening to Dave Ross of KIRO-AM/710 in Seattle give a dramatic reading:
And if you read the finger-pointing, ass-covering, wheel-spinning internal email conversation between the people Bill flamed, you will understand why the product sucked so hard.
Hey, Bill, welcome to the Windows user experience! It reminds me of what I still have to go though every time I try to connect my kid’s Windows machine to a new hotspot.